Sunday, 23 June 2013

[This article was commissioned for and published in today's Scotland on Sunday newspaper]

I don’t know how anyone familiar with Robert Burns’ life
and work can argue he would vote NO in the Referendum so I suppose it is a
tribute to his continuing potency that they even try.

There can be no doubt Burns was a man exercised by injustice
and oppression as well as a love of his country. As an internationalist he
engaged fully in the world around him. So Scotland’s current dilemma, where our
social democratic values are repeatedly thwarted by Governments we did not
elected would undoubtedly have compelled him to put pen to paper.

He reminds us in his poem ‘A parcel of rogues in a nation’
why the 1707 Act of Union was signed – to bail out a financial elite who had
squandered the nations assets on reckless and greedy misadventure – and why it
was so unpopular with the masses who suffered such appalling economic, social
and political ills as a consequence. Enraged at the ‘treachery’ of the Act and
furious, not with ‘the English’, but with the emergent mercantile classes in
Scotland who drew up its provisions he condemned them as ‘…a coward
few….hireling traitors….bought and sold for English gold’.

And as a supporter of the United Scotsmen as well as the
French and American revolutions Burns’ democratic sensibilities – dangerous to
openly advocate and inspired by Thomas Muir and Thomas Paine - ooze out of
every poem he wrote. Every audacious word decries those complacent,
reactionary, Scots who took privileges for granted and treated their fellow
countrymen and women with complete contempt and meted out severe punishment to
any who challenged their authority, as Muir found to his cost.

There can be no doubt Robert Burns supported the Scottish
Independence cause and as an activist in his own time no doubt he would also be
a prominent participant in the Yes campaign today.

Monday, 3 June 2013

INDEPENDENCE ONE YEAR NEARER

The cross party alliance for Independence ’Yes Scotland’
was launched one year ago. And if the debate over this past year is any guide Independence is clearly the progressive option for
Scotland on September 18th 2014. That message was delivered by ‘Yes Scotland’
Chief Executive Blair Jenkins this week as he announced 372,000 people have now
signed the ‘Declaration for Independence’. The target, of one million
signatures by this time next year, is well on schedule.

Whilst the Yes campaign
has sought to highlight the possibilities to advance Scotland’s social
democratic values and aspirations the No side has offered a diet of unremitting
negativity and doom-mongering.

Be that as it may. The
lefts case for Independence is that the opportunity to break with the British
state, its Westminster Parliament, its Whitehall mandarins, its City of London
capitalists, its Bank of England financiers and its South East England
political exclusivity would undoubtedly benefit the Scottish working class.

Socialists here make a
clear case for Scottish Independence based on extending the unmistakeable
social democratic values held by the majority of people who live here. These
values are constantly subverted by a political, economic and social elite we
can neither influence nor change.

Let me example that value
system for those who may not fully appreciate the differences North and South
of the Border.

Scotland voted for free
NHS prescriptions, having already voted for free elderly care and free
education. Scots by majority overwhelmingly support public ownership of
essential public services as oppose to privatisation. Consequently Scotland
does not suffer the same levels of privatisation of our NHS or other public services
as England. Scotland views the ‘bedroom tax’ with same disgust we had for the
Poll tax and the same sense it was being foisted on us against our will.
Scotland by a sizeable majority opposes Trident nuclear weapons, based as they
are on the Clyde. Scotland has been almost a ‘Tory free zone’ for the past 20
years with just one Tory MP here out of 52.

Moreover the political
battleground is fought out between Labour and a party to their left, the SNP.
This has been the case for decades. Scots oppose the monarchy in far greater
proportions than anywhere else in the UK.Scots by majority oppose the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan as they
opposed the invasion of Iraq. Scots do not support the unregulated,
laissez-faire, free market neo-liberal economic system to anywhere near the
same degree as South East England.

Yet the fact is, and has been for a considerable time now,
these values are constantly subverted by a political system and constitutional
arrangement we no longer support.

The 2011 Scottish Parliament elections saw a further move
away from Labour, this move was not to the right as in England, but to the
left.

And here we encounter some confusion from opponents of
Independence unable to distinguish this move towards greater social democratic
values in a party, the SNP, which is clearly neo-liberal on economic matters.
Ironically it seems to have taken the Tory commentator and author David
Torrance to point out the SNP’s essential character. Highlighting the deepening
crisis in the Tory Party in Scotland he makes the telling point that the SNP’s
right of centre economic policy –favouring a ‘business friendly Scotland with
low Corporation Tax levels’ etc – leaves the Tories with no room to establish
this as their own, unique terrain. But whilst the SNP are certainly right of
centre on economic policy [although no more so than New Labour] they are to the
left on social policy.

The ‘Yes Scotland’ coalition is an alliance between social
democrats and socialists, between ‘business friendly’ figures and the Greens,
between left, right and centre. It sees its job not to develop policy but
rather to maximise support for Independence. Clearly this is often easier said
than done but it concludes that the type of Independence Scotland opts for will
be determined by the outcome of the 2016 Scottish General Elections [following
the Yes vote in 2014 and a period of negotiations between Holyrood and
Westminster on the transitional arrangements for the hand over of power].

‘Yes Scotland’ is influenced heavily by the SNP, its biggest
and most powerful constituent part, but the SSP and the Greens continue to play
an important part both in influencing strategy and in posing the type of
Independent Scotland we each prefer.

The Scottish Socialist Party is clear that Independence
represents both a step away from neo-liberal economics, corporate control and
British state warmongering and a step towards a more social democratic Scotland
where we can more effectively raise socialist ideas.

We have many differences of course with Alex Salmond. Not
the least a view that victory in the 2014 Referendum will best be achieved by
stressing the transformational character of Independence rather than
maintaining so many of the present arrangements such as keeping the Queen,
keeping the pound, maintaining corporate dominance of our economy and remaining
within NATO.

Nonetheless we are convinced that Scotland’s social
democratic values are more likely to be advanced within an Independent
settlement where the people of Scotland can more readily shape our country.
Remaining part of the UK means the Scottish working class will suffer worsening
economic conditions – the worst recession in 80 years - worsening social
conditions – amid the 4th most unequal society in the industrialised
world – worsening political conditions as we continue to endure more Tory
Governments we did not elect and cannot abide – and further diminution of our
distinct cultural identity, institutions and values.

Independence offers the Scottish working class a different
choice, of a new social order and a far more progressive future. That’s why the
Scottish Socialist Party supports it and advocates an Independent socialist
Scotland that is in due course a modern democratic republic.

This article was originally written for ad published by The Morning Star [31/5/13]